Meet the New King of Twitter

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Meet the New King of Twitter

(CNN) — Sometime on Sunday, the world will lurch a little on its axis. There’ll be a thunderclap heard around the globe, a blinding flash of light, and the people of the Internet will fall to their knees in reverence.

On that day, Justin Bieber will pass Lady Gaga as the most followed account on Twitter.

As of Friday afternoon Gaga had more than 33,198,000 followers — some 46,000 more than Bieber, who was close behind at 33,152,000. (That’s more than the population of Peru.)

But The Biebs is gaining fans at a faster rate, and according to Twitter Counter, which forecasts such things, he will pass Gaga on Sunday between 4:23 p.m. and 4:24 p.m. ET.

The carefully coiffed li’l crooner will become Twitter’s first new king or queen (er, prince?) since Lady Gaga dethroned Britney Spears in August 2010 — way back when 5 million followers was a big deal. (For some reason, 7 of the 10 most-followed Twitter accounts are singers.)

But can his Beliebers keep him on top? Will Gaga’s Little Monsters mount a comeback? Or are the two pop stars fated to battle for Twitter supremacy for months, or years to come? Oh, the drama!

Now, as they say in boxing, for the Tale of the Tape. Let’s measure these dueling tweeters, toe to toe:

Age

Gaga: 26

Bieber: 18

Birthplace

Gaga: New York City

Bieber: London, Ontario (that’s Canada, people)

Albums

Gaga: 3

Bieber: 3 (his fourth, “Believe Acoustic,” will be released January 29)

Grammy nominations

Gaga: 15

Bieber: 2

Grammys won

Gaga: 5

Bieber: 0

Time on Twitter

Gaga: 4 years, 11 months

Bieber: 3 years, 10 months

Recent tweet

Number of tweets (as of Friday)

Gaga: 2,583

Bieber: 20,478

Not-so-secret secret

Gaga: Has 14 tattoos

Bieber: Infatuated with the color purple

Embarrassing-but-sort-of-impressive onstage mishap

Gaga: Got whacked with a pole by a backup dancer and kept on performing